Fans prefer the BBC WC online coverage

As the World Cup started last week, more than 2.54 million people in the United Kingdom visited gambling and sports sites on the Internet, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings.

The research firm said that the total coincided with England’s World Cup opener Saturday against Paraguay.

The BBC's homepage proved to be the most popular sports website, attracting 1.3 million unique visitors, averaging 21 minutes online.

Those totals were nearly four times higher than rival Sky Sports, which had 369,000 visitors spending an average of 13 minutes on its website.

Ladbrokes was the most popular sports betting website, attracting 114,000 unique visitors.

"The millions visiting sports and gambling websites around the World Cup show what a vital part online plays in today's sporting events," said Alex Burmaster, European analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings. "It's interesting to note that the appetite for gambling is particularly strong -- these visitors averaging 39 minutes whereas those for sports news averaging only 16 minutes."

According to the company’s data, Internet traffic was highest on Saturday, peaking at 1.1 million. This likely was due to football fans looking for post-match analysis of England's opening victory.

"Despite the fact that [Saturday] was the hottest day of the year, almost 1 million sports fans visited a sports or gambling website on the day of England's opening game against Paraguay," Burmaster said.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.